Unto Us a Son Is Given

by Donna Leon

  Brunetti rubbed at his cheek and found a small spot he had missed while shaving that morning. Luca arrived with coffee; Brunetti put sugar into his and stirred it around to give himself something to do while he thought of how to answer Vianello’s question. Finally he said, ‘Yes, I’d say.’ He listened to the echo of that and added, ‘I don’t understand them, the people my father-in-law knows, the people of his class. Some of them seem to do whatever they want and never give it a thought, but others act as though everyone and their dog is paying attention to all that they do.’

  ‘Just like us peasants,’ Vianello said, laughed, and called over to Luca to ask him to bring the bill.

  11

  On their way back to the Questura, Brunetti explained that he’d asked Signorina Elettra if she could find time to fill in some of the gaps between the few events he knew in Gonzalo’s life. Vianello reminded him that tomorrow was her last day in the office before her vacation, and she might not have time to do anything ‘private’.

  Vianello’s comment made Brunetti realize to what degree he had blocked from his mind the fact that Signorina Elettra would not be there for three weeks. He knew himself incapable of doing the research and would not ask anyone else, not even Vianello, to take on something that was, as Signorina Elettra observed, ‘private’.

  Neither of them spoke again until they reached the Questura, where, still silent, they separated, each returning to his own office. Brunetti spent the rest of the afternoon reading through the files that had arrived on his desk that morning. Rizzardi, the chief pathologist, confirmed that a tourist who had been found three days before in what was described as a ‘lake of blood’ by the chambermaid in the hotel where he was staying had indeed bled to death after a varicose vein in his leg exploded. The man had been drinking heavily and apparently had been unconscious when the vein burst. Brunetti chose not to look at the photos taken by the team sent to the man’s hotel room.

  A Bangladeshi cook had been attacked and beaten while walking home from his job in a restaurant on Lista di Spagna. No attempt had been made to rob him; his attackers spoke Italian. A bomb had exploded in a Bancomat in front of one of the banks in Campo San Luca two nights before, but the blast had failed to open the machine. A video camera above it had recorded both the planting of the bomb and its premature explosion, which had wounded one of the men. Both of them were identified by the first police to view the video, and one was arrested the following day. Within an hour of the explosion, the other had presented himself at Pronto Soccorso with blast wounds and third-degree burns on his right hand and arm and was arrested when he emerged from the surgery that had removed what remained of three of his fingers. Two still photos of the men from the video camera were attached to the report: Brunetti recognized both of them, petty criminals to whom the judicial system had become a recycling centre.

  He went out for a coffee, came back to the Questura and went up to Griffoni’s office but found it empty. Finally, not long after six, he decided he had had enough, so left his office and the Questura. It was still light outside, a flash of delight at the end of a tedious day.

  Traces of red in the sky to the west were reflected in some low-lying clouds, and Brunetti regretted not having chosen to walk along by the water at least as far as the Basilica. By the time he got to Rialto, the red was gone, the clouds returned to light grey shreds.

  As he passed what used to be Biancat, he thought about no longer being able to stop and get flowers on his way home. No sooner had he registered his regret than he told himself not to think of it, not to complain about it, not to whine. Biancat was gone, and now there were cheap purses and belts, and that was that.

  Upstairs, all was silent in the apartment. He walked down to the bedroom, passing Paola’s empty study on the way, and hung up his jacket, replacing it with a thick brown sweater he had been given for Christmas by a not-disinterested Raffi. He went back to Paola’s study and placed himself in front of the shelves that held his books. He studied the titles on the spines, uncertain what he wanted to read. Recently he’d been reading the Greek tragedies he’d not looked at since he was a student and now wanted to continue with them because, reading them after so many years, he found them new and revelatory. He heard himself grunt softly as his eyes passed over the possibilities. He still wasn’t ready to read Medea again, and Agamemnon was too unforgiving. What about The Trojan Women? He remembered his Greek professor throwing up his hands in disgust when none of them could think of a contemporary parallel with the story. Oh, had Professore De Palma been living now, Brunetti thought, the parallels would rain down upon him: the seas around Italy were filled with boatloads of Trojan Women. The brothels of Europe were bursting with the living spoils of war in the East.

  He took the book from the shelf and went back to the living room and began to read. A half-hour later, when Paola came home, he had read only a few pages and had stopped at Poseidon’s words: ‘What fools men are to raze a city, destroying tombs, and temples, and sacred places, when they are so soon to die themselves.’ He wondered how many wise people had said the same over the millennia, yet here we are, still sending in the helmeted men in search of revenge. And loot.

  Brunetti wasn’t aware of Paola’s arrival until she called his name. He closed and set the book aside and got to his feet. He went over and kissed her cheek, fighting down the impulse to wrap her in his protective arms and promise that he would keep her safe.

  Unaware that she might need her husband’s protection, Paola hooked her jacket on the rack beside the door and bent to pick up the shopping bags at her feet. He took them from her, telling himself that, even if he could not save her from the wrath of Menelaus, he could at least carry the groceries into the kitchen.

  One bag was much heavier than the other. He hefted it a few times and asked, ‘What’s in here?’

  She turned at the door and looked at the bag. ‘Ah, a kilo of asparagus and a kilo of new peas. I think we should eat as much of them as we can while they’re in season, so I want to see if they’d work together in a risotto.’

  ‘Not just peas?’ he asked. Venetian to the marrow, he’d grown up on risi e bisi and loved it. ‘Perhaps we could have the asparagus first?’

  ‘Do I hear the pleading of an addict?’ she asked.

  ‘You know I love risi e bisi.’

  ‘You have no culinary curiosity, Guido.’

  ‘I do,’ he insisted, putting the bags on the counter and his hand on his heart. ‘It’s just that I love risi e bisi.’

  ‘You’re worse than the kids. At least they’re willing to try new things.’

  ‘So am I,’ he insisted. ‘But I thought it would be nice if we could have …’ He let his voice fade away and then added a few whimpering hiccups. In an attempt to placate his daughter, he added, ‘Besides, serving us local vegetables will make up for the vitello tonnato.’

  Paola had been unpacking the vegetables, and poked him on the arm with the bunch of asparagus. ‘All right, all right, all right. Go back to your book and leave me alone.’

  When he moved towards the refrigerator, she said, ‘There’s a bottle of Gewürztraminer in there. Why don’t you open it so I can add some to the risotto?’

  Brunetti did as ordered, ever obedient to the voice of good sense.

  When he returned to his place and to his book, he paused before opening it again and took a sip of his wine, and then another. This was the point, he knew, when he could put the book back and choose something less threatening. He knew what was going to come, but he had forgotten how most of the characters reacted to their destinies, those caused by the whims of the gods or those of man.

  He set his glass on the table and picked up the book.

  He heard the kids come home. Chiara came in and kissed the top of his head and disappeared without saying a word. Occasionally a noise or a voice filtered through to him, and he was relieved, in the midst of what he was reading, to hear the sounds of life.

  When Paola came to the door to
call him to dinner, he had succeeded in reading only five more pages and was glad of her summons, for it freed him – at least for the moment – from hearing Cassandra’s prophecies of the murderous consequences of her rape. He set the book aside again, for he knew what would befall the mad princess and the women captured with her. But what of the moment’s many rapes, in boats, on beaches, in trucks and cars, as more Trojan Women were cast from their homes into the arms of the men who had placed a bid on them or been promised them as part of the loot?

  Brunetti stopped in the doorway of the kitchen and shook himself free of the play’s encirclement, but not before he accepted that what had to happen, would.

  The others looked up when he came in, each of them happy at the sight of him. In the centre of the table stood a porcelain bowl of risotto with peas, its creamy surface all but undulating to him in welcome. He took his place, Paola spooned steaming risotto on to his plate, and passed it to him. Then the children, then herself.

  Chiara pushed herself up from her seat in a spontaneous demonstration of delight. ‘Risi bisi, risi bisi,’ she said, not hiding her joy.

  Brunetti breathed his silent hope – had he been a believer, he would have called it a prayer – to something about which he knew nothing and in which he probably didn’t believe, that Chiara would have endless seasons in which to take such delight in peas. To do so would help her have a happy life: he believed that without understanding why.

  ‘Papà,’ she asked tentatively, when her first hunger was sated, ‘is it true that Zio Gonzalo is trying to adopt someone?’

  Luckily, Brunetti had just begun to eat, so he could delay a moment while he formulated an answer. By way of response, he asked, ‘Where did you hear that?’ He glanced towards Paola and saw her nod of approval at the calm with which he’d responded.

  ‘Nonno said it at lunch today, and then he kept talking about it, even when Nonna asked him to stop.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Paola interrupted to ask.

  Chiara cast a glance at her brother, who had been with her at their grandparents’ for lunch, but Raffi continued eating, seeming to pay little attention to the conversation.

  ‘Oh, the usual stuff,’ she answered.

  ‘What usual stuff?’ Brunetti asked.

  Chiara set her fork down and looked at her father. ‘That it was a mistake.’

  Brunetti, who was pretty much of that opinion himself, asked, ‘Did he say what kind of a mistake?’

  ‘Kind?’

  ‘Yes. Was it because he had a family already or because he was too old to take on new responsibilities, or did Nonno have some objection to the person?’

  This brought Raffi into the conversation. ‘He didn’t explain it. He said that Gonzalo shouldn’t do it, and that was that.’ Raffi waited a moment until he saw how his parents had digested this, then added, ‘It’s not like Nonno to be so close-minded, is it?’ This sounded to Brunetti like a rhetorical question, so he gave Paola the chance to answer it: il Conte was her father, after all.

  It was not until all three of them were looking at her that Paola finally said, ‘I’d guess it’s because his idea of family might be different from Gonzalo’s.’

  ‘Family?’ Chiara asked. ‘Isn’t Zio Gonzalo’s in Spain?’

  Paola nodded.

  ‘Then why should it bother them if he adopts someone here?’ she asked, honestly puzzled.

  Raffi broke in to say, ‘He has us as family here, doesn’t he?’ Seeing their expressions, he added, ‘Well, sort of family.’

  Paola looked at Raffi and gave a small smile. ‘Your grandfather doesn’t think of family as something that can be “sort of” anything. Either it is or it isn’t.’

  ‘What does “family” mean to him, then?’ Chiara asked in a strangely adult tone. ‘“Family” because of what?’

  ‘Blood, I think he’d say,’ Paola answered.

  ‘Then what about Bartolomeo?’ Chiara asked instantly, naming the adopted son of a colleague of Paola’s.

  ‘Maybe it’s different because he was adopted when he was a child,’ Brunetti suggested.

  ‘What’s the cut-off age?’ Chiara shot back.

  Momentarily confused, Brunetti asked, ‘Age for what?’

  ‘For when the adoption works and you really become the child of the people who adopt you? Is there an age?’ There was a touch of something – mischief, not sarcasm – in the way she asked her question.

  Chiara was often put on the defensive, Brunetti knew, when her remarks were not treated seriously, but this time she remained entirely calm and continued, ‘I’m just trying to find out what the rules are that let you become part of a family.’

  Oh, the clever girl, Brunetti thought in silent pride.

  ‘Did Nonno know how old this person is?’ Paola asked. To make it absolutely clear, she added, ‘The one Gonzalo wants to adopt?’

  ‘From what he said before Nonna managed to stop him,’ Chiara said with the merest suggestion of a smile, ‘I’d guess he’s old.’

  Raffi looked at his sister and said, ‘I have a feeling that someone at this table is going to ask you what you mean by “old”.’

  Chiara gave him the long-suffering glance of a person beset by obstacles and said, ‘I think he’s about forty.’

  Instead of asking how she had discovered that, Brunetti nodded and agreed, ‘Old.’ He wondered how long it would take for Chiara to ask if there were a limit at the other end of the age scale for adoption, but she did not.

  She turned to her mother and said, ‘Mamma, you said that Nonno might object to the person.’ She ate a bit more risotto then placed her fork across what remained on the plate and said, ‘He never said who it was, but I got the impression that Nonno knew him and didn’t like him.’

  ‘Did he say that?’ Paola asked.

  ‘No, but you know Nonno doesn’t need a reason to think something.’

  Had Chiara’s remark been made as anything other than the simple observation of a truth known to everyone taking part in the conversation, one of her parents would have reproved her. As it was, it passed uncommented and thus agreed upon.

  ‘Besides,’ she continued, ‘we’ve all heard Zio Gonzalo talk about his family over the years. The only one he can stand is his sister, the doctor. So why shouldn’t he decide to start his own family?’ She looked around the table, but no one said anything. ‘It’s what he’d do if he got married, isn’t it?’ she asked, a quaver of uncertainty in her voice.

  Paola looked at Brunetti and signalled that this was a question he might better answer than she. Chiara turned to him and tilted her head in inquiry.

  With legal dispassion, Brunetti began, ‘It’s a bit more, I think. If he adopts, then his adopted son will inherit everything; a wife gets only her portion.’

  Chiara interrupted immediately. ‘I’m not talking about money, Papà. I’m talking about love.’

  No one spoke. The silence spread out until Paola got to her feet and started to collect the plates. Mutely, they all handed them to her, careful to see that the forks did not fall. She was quickly back with a large serving dish of chicken with cherry tomatoes and olives, which she placed in the centre of the table, then went back to the counter and brought Chiara a plate of assorted cheeses.

  Brunetti waited until Paola was seated again before he continued. ‘I’m afraid the law can’t say anything accurate about love, Chiara. It can’t be measured, or evaluated, or even recognized. So when lawyers talk about things like adoption, they have to talk about the things that are certain, and that means they can talk only about the laws, and the laws are concerned with money and objects and what people can and cannot do.’

  Her plate forgotten in front of her, Chiara kept her eyes on her father.

  ‘I can’t speak for your grandfather or about why he doesn’t approve of what Gonzalo wants to do, but I think I can explain why he is … uncomfortable … with the idea.’

  ‘Is it because Gonzalo’s gay?’ Chiara asked hesitantly.

>   ‘No,’ Brunetti said without a moment’s hesitation. ‘That’s not important to your grandfather.’

  ‘Then why is he making such a big thing about this?’ Chiara asked. ‘I really don’t understand.’

  ‘I think it’s because he believes Gonzalo hasn’t given it enough thought,’ Brunetti said, realizing that this might well be the truth. ‘The law makes it certain what a father’s obligations to his son are: he has to support him, and then he has to leave his estate to him, and because Gonzalo doesn’t have a wife, it will go to his adopted son. Once the adoption is concluded, he can’t back out.’ Chiara nodded in understanding.

  ‘But going the other way,’ Brunetti went on, ‘from the son to the father, there’s no legal protection. He has no legal obligation to give the father anything, nor to love him nor to feel grateful to him.’ This time it was some time before Chiara nodded.

  ‘And so perhaps that’s why your grandfather is worried about what his best friend wants to do.’

  Paola suddenly surprised them all by saying, ‘I’d like us not to talk about this any more, please. It’s not our business.’ Then, before anyone could comment, she added, ‘To the degree that we love Gonzalo, we can be concerned for him. But we cannot gossip about him, at least not at this table.’

  12

  The mood of the meal could not be lightened, even by Paola’s reminder that half of a date and almond cake waited in the refrigerator: not even Raffi was interested. She sent them all out of the kitchen and washed the dishes. Brunetti, who was in the living room, was conscious of how very quietly she worked that evening, entirely without the clacks and thuds that were a part of the process when she had a final comment to make on something that had been said over the meal.

  He chose to listen to the noise she was making rather than return to the Trojan Women. He sat on the sofa and mused about this: these fictive people and what happened to them were much more upsettingly real to him than what he read in even the most graphic police reports. Himself no writer, a man who had no special ability with words, Brunetti found in their power traces of what he was embarrassed to call the divine.